


make my heart your home (thanks mom, you're the best!)

by tiredandjaded (CallingVersatile)



Series: make my heart your home [1]
Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Guilt, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Luz Accidentally Calls Eda Mom: The Fanfic, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pre-Agony of a Witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26285455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallingVersatile/pseuds/tiredandjaded
Summary: Mornings in the Owl House had never been a quiet affair. Between King, Hooty, and of course, the Owl Lady herself, moments of peace tended to find themselves quickly shattered by either magic, mischief, or… whatever it is that Hooty does.And that was before Luz Noceda had quite literally fallen into Eda’s life.ORLuz has a slip of the tongue, Eda has a revelation.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Luz Noceda
Series: make my heart your home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937986
Comments: 297
Kudos: 1044





	1. Chapter 1

Mornings in the Owl House had never been a quiet affair. Between King, Hooty, and of course, the Owl Lady herself, moments of peace tended to find themselves quickly shattered by either magic, mischief, or… whatever it was that Hooty did. 

That was before Luz Noceda had quite literally fallen into Eda’s life. Now, mornings were punctuated by strange music emanating from that glowy rectangle and the irregular thumping of feet—which she knew, by now, could only be her apprentice dancing around in the bathroom as she brushed her teeth (probably getting toothpaste all over the mirror, that little brat), chatter from distant rooms—King’s grandiose declarations of victory and conquest, followed by the softer, fond tone Luz took whenever she was talking to the little demon. Maybe the occasional conflagration from a spell mishap, which Eda hadn’t even pretended to be disappointed in. No apprentice of hers was going to regret making things explode! That was half the fun of magic! 

Luz was even pretty good about letting Eda have her beauty sleep. Oh, sure, once Eda emerged from her nest it was open season, and she would likely be bombarded with half a dozen questions about magic and life on the Boiling Isles that Luz had cooked up overnight, but… who was she to say no to that kind of enthusiasm? If Luz could wait until Eda stumbled out of bed at noon, Eda could groggily explain the magical uses of a jackalope’s venom gland while she waited for her apple blood to heat up. 

She would never admit it out loud, but Eda was pretty damn sure she had the best apprentice in all the Boiling Isles.

On several occasions, Eda had even woken up to a house filled with the most wonderful smells. The first time it had happened, she’d thought it was her curse acting up again. Sometimes she would experience heightened senses without any other effects of the transformation—it had nearly driven her crazy early on, until she realized she was smelling baked goods and roasting meat from several blocks away. But when the delectable scent remained after Eda had taken her morning swig of elixir, she resolved to go investigate. 

She didn’t know what she expected to find when she slunk down the stairs to her kitchen, but it was not her apprentice watching carefully over a hot griddle suspended over a cheerfully blazing fire glyph, flour dusting her clothes and a smudge of batter on her cheek, with a stack of delicious smelling _somethings_ piled high on a plate next to her. She was wearing an even more batter-encrusted apron which declared “APPROACH THE COOK AND YOUR LIFE IS FORFEIT.” 

It was… okay, look. Yes, she was Eda the Owl Lady, most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles, fugitive from the emperor and public enemy number one. She was a total badass, ask anyone! Not a drop of sentimentality in her body. 

But come on. Her heart wasn’t made of stone, here. And even if it was (nasty condition, there’s a reason she never messed around with geomancy), Eda was pretty sure this would’ve melted it. She would never admit it outside her own head, but this was adorable. 

That said, she still had a reputation to uphold. 

“What’s the occasion, kid?” she called out casually. Luz jumped in surprise, before spinning around, nearly losing the mixing spoon sticking out of the bowl. Eda chuckled as her apprentice juggled the utensil momentarily before managing to land it back where it belonged.

“Eda!” Luz exclaimed, her whole face lighting up as she noticed her mentor leaning against the stairs. Eda fought a quick, but doomed internal battle against the grin threatening to break out on her face. It was still _weird_ for anyone to say her name with that level of… happiness. Weird, but nice. Luz quickly rushed over, still carrying the dripping mixing bowl and talking a mile a minute. “Dang it, I was hoping you’d at least stay asleep until the pancakes were done—I haven’t even started cutting the berries yet! Oh, I didn’t know what you really liked, so I just got a bunch of different fruits from the store? Not really sure what they are, but they probably wouldn’t sell me something I couldn’t eat, right? ...Actually, now that I think about it-” Eda shook her head fondly as Luz babbled on, before reaching a hand out and placing it on one of the more clean sections of her apprentice’s head. 

“Slow down, kiddo. What’s a 'pan cake'? And what’s this about the market? And, for that matter, you haven’t answered my first question—what’s the big event? Did I forget it was my birthday again?” 

Instead of the verbal torrent of answers followed by further questions Eda was expecting in response, Luz set the bowl down and twisted her hands together nervously, looking down at the ground instead of up at her mentor. 

“Well, um, a pancake is like, a human breakfast food? I don’t really know how to cook very many things, but these always seem to turn out pretty well?” There was an uncertain quality to her apprentice’s words, almost like she was asking permission, and Luz was still looking at the ground. “And the berries,” she continued, looking up from her intense study of the floorboards to nod in the direction of another mixing bowl resting on the counter (Eda could swear she caught the tiniest hint of a blush on her apprentice’s face before she went back to staring at the ground), “I got the berries from the market with some tip money from potion deliveries. Whenever I’d have pancakes at home, I always wanted strawberries on them, but obviously there’s no strawberries here, so…” It was at this point that Luz trailed off into an explanation too mumbled for Eda to make out, and yep, that was definitely a blush. As fun as it was to watch her apprentice embarrass herself, Eda decided to put her out of her misery. 

“Well this is all…” _sickeningly sweet,_ was the first thing that comes to mind. “Nice,” is what she ended up going with. “But I still don’t know what’s going on. Did King put you up to this?” Eda looked around, but couldn’t see the demon anywhere. “That little freeloader doesn’t need special human breakfast food, you really shouldn’t go to all that effort for-” 

“Actually, um-” 

“I swear, you’re too soft on him. Gonna get spoiled, and no one wants that. Did I ever tell you about that time I let him have some candied ogre eyes after bedtime? Once, just _once_ , and he-” 

“It’s for you!”

This time, it was Eda’s turn to whip around in surprise. Luz was still blushing, but she wasn't staring a hole in the floor anymore. She met Eda’s (not at all shocked, of course not) eyes and took a deep breath before continuing in a softer tone, no longer having to speak over her teacher. “It’s for you, Eda. I just… wanted to do something nice for you,” she said, like it was the simplest thing in the world, but it was her next words that nearly knocked the wind out of Eda. “You deserve it.” 

For a second, all Eda could do was stare, stare at this slightly sweaty, batter-stained human that wandered into her life and made it so much more, who hangs off of Eda’s every word and is willing to learn magic in her own wild way… who, apparently, wakes up early in the morning to _make breakfast for Eda_ and tells her it’s because she _deserves it_. The embers of warmth that had been stirring in Eda’s chest as she listened to her apprentice ramble had become a wildfire. Nothing had changed, yet somehow it felt like her world had tilted ever so slightly on its axis, and was at that exact moment that Eda realized she would do anything for this kid. 

It was only when Luz started to fidget again that Eda realized she had been sitting there with her mouth open for Titan knows how long. 

“It’s, um, okay if you don’t like it, I just-” Luz began, smile starting to drop from her face before Eda cut her off with the first thing that comes to mind. 

“Kid… what did I do to deserve you?” Eda hadn’t planned on being quite that honest, but, there was no taking it back now. 

Realizing her gesture hadn’t somehow been a flop, Luz’s earnest, sunny expression made an instant comeback before she happily launched into an answer to Eda’s rhetorical question.

“Well, you brought me to a magical world beyond my wildest dreams, took me in as your apprentice, let me stay in your amazing enchanted house, taught me real actual magic, got me enrolled in Hexside, and you’ve never thought I was too much, or too weird, and I think you’re really nice even when you try to pretend you-” 

“Alright, alright! I get it! C’mon, Luz, this much sentimentality this early in the morning is gonna give me a stomachache.” Eda’s protests came out far too fondly to be convincing at all, if the knowing look on her apprentice’s face was any indication. “But uh…” Eda held an arm out, gesturing to Luz. “C’mere, kid.” 

Before she could blink, Luz had thrown herself against Eda, arms circling around her back and cheek pressed against her stomach. After a brief moment of _right, this is happening_ (while Eda did know perfectly well what a hug was, it had been some time since anyone other than the human wanted to get that close to her), Eda allowed her arm to fall around her apprentice’s shoulder. 

Humans ran warm compared to witches, cursed ones doubly so. It was… odd, Eda decided, to have something so warm pressed up against her, but not unpleasant. Plus, it made Luz happy. If the girl had gone to this much effort for her, even the Wild Witch of the Boiling Isles could spare a hug. 

“Hey, uh, Luz? Are they supposed to be smoking?” 

Suffice to say, Eda was no stranger to the many different forms a morning could take in the Owl House. The binding thread between all of them, however, was some form of Luz-based commotion. Even on weekends, Luz always seemed to be up before Eda, playing with King or getting into mischief. 

So when Eda woke up to a near-silent house for the first time in months, it was more than a little strange. She lay in her nest for a minute, thinking she might catch a telltale giggle or snort of laughter that could only mean Luz was watching her “vine compilations” (why she needed her phone to look at plants when they were everywhere, Eda had no clue), but there was nothing. 

Pushing down a _completely ridiculous_ trickle of worry, she stretched languidly before climbing out of her nest. Foregoing her usual mirror checkup—not like she was gonna stop being a catch overnight—Eda instead held her hand out the air, calling Owlbert-plus-staff to her hand after a few seconds, and set out to investigate the lack of commotion. 

Luz wasn’t in the living room, or the kitchen slash alchemy lab. Neither was King, but this was less surprising. The little demon had been attached to Luz at the hip ever since the human had arrived; Eda was sure she’d find him wherever her apprentice was. “She can’t seriously still be asleep, right?” Eda mused aloud. Then she stopped. “Great, one quiet morning and you’re talking to yourself. Get a grip, Eda.” 

After another minute of fruitless searching, she came to a much simpler solution. 

“LUZ!” 

Finally, Eda heard something. It was… a faint grumble. _No way_ , she thought. _She_ is _still asleep!_ A quick spell circle traced in the air and a glass of water popped into existence and fell into her waiting grasp. She took a few sips as she made her way down the hallway before sending it back to the kitchen. 

The door to Luz’s room, which proudly declared ‘LUZ NOCEDA, WITCH APPRENTICE’ in regal lettering Eda had scorched into the wood for her, was cracked open when she arrived. No light came from within, but the occasional squeaky snore that King refused to admit he made told her enough. Intent on rousing her sleeping apprentice, Eda pushed the door open. As soon as she took in what her eyes were seeing, she let out a low whistle, eyebrows climbing into the air. 

Luz’s room had never been _clean—_ Eda would rip out her own bile sac before she told a teenager to pick up their room, thank you very much—but at the moment it looked like a paper cyclone had passed through. Pristine pieces of paper, wrinkled and crumpled sheets, and tightly packed balls were all around the room in a blast radius around Luz’s sleeping bag. From the ones that were face up, Eda could see multiple spell glyphs, sometimes overlapping at the edges, sometimes completely overlaid with a mishmash of two different glyphs in a single circle.

The girl herself was only half inside her sleeping bag, one leg hiked up and laying out on the floor. An open notebook lay perilously close to where she was drooling on her pillow, and it looked like she’d fallen asleep with a pencil in her hand. King was curled into a tight ball on the corner of the sleeping bag, occasionally letting out a squeaky snore.

Eda was utterly, immeasurably fond of this kid. 

“Staying up too late learning spells, mixing magic when you weren’t told to… you sure you’re not my kid?” she said softly, staring at Luz with the kind of open tenderness she wouldn’t be caught dead showing in public. Or around King, who would never let her hear the end of it. Not for the first time, Eda marveled at how much of herself she saw in Luz. That wild energy, the determination, her willingness to forge her own path… but with a heart far better than her own. “Luz Noceda, the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles,” Eda whispered. “Just you wait.” 

After a minute that, if anyone asked, Eda did _not_ spend watching Luz sleep—it was more like keeping guard, that’s all—she noticed King starting to stir. Unwilling to let the demon catch her being a mushy weirdo, she resolved to wake Luz up. 

“Hey, sleepyhead. You still alive in there?” Eda let her staff tap against the ground to punctuate her question. 

Luz barely stirred. A frown flicked across her face and she curled into her blanket a bit more, before letting out a happy sigh that made something twist in Eda’s chest. “Jeez, kid, how late were you up?” Eda grumbled. No response. 

“Hey. Luz. C’mon,” she said, louder this time. “It’s like… noon?” Eda guessed. 

This garnered no response from the sleeping girl, but King, previously curled into a ball at the foot of the sleeping bag, jolted awake. 

“Who _dares_ disturb my—oh, hi Eda.” With his usual awakening rant averted, King yawned, stretched, and looked around the room, nodding appreciatively at its new paper decorations.

“Yeah, hi. What in Titan’s name happened in here?” Eda demanded, tapping her staff on the floor impatiently. “Luz never sleeps this late. And neither do you, for that matter. Downright freaky to wake up to a house this quiet.” 

“Luz had an idea about combining spell glyphs and said she wouldn’t go to sleep until she got it. Obviously, I had to prove my superiority by staying up longer than her. Which I did.” 

“Well, that was utterly irresponsible. I like her style. But today is a potion delivery day, so she needs to be _up!_ ” Her final word was punctuated by a circle of magic, and Luz’s slumbering form, sleeping bag and all, rose a foot into the air on a disc of yellow energy and hovered there. 

Luz didn’t even stir. 

“O-kay…” Eda said. “Now I’m almost impressed?” 

“Ooh! Now drop her!” King demanded. “Shock and panic is my favorite way to start a morning!” 

“We’re not dropping her, and your favorite mornings involve cupcakes and snuggling with Luz,” Eda shot back flatly. She gently lowered the still-sleeping girl to the ground, tuning out King’s insistence that the king of demons would never stoop to _snuggling_. “I’ll tell you what, one more try the nice way, then we see how many of your ‘minions’ we can stack on her before she wakes up.” 

“Burying her in the armies of evil. I like it!” Eda shot an amused glance at King as the demon rubbed his little paws together. Adorable. But as hilarious as that would be, Eda would rather have her apprentice up in time for potion deliveries. Or to keep her from getting bored in the hour or so before potion deliveries would start. 

“LUZ NOCEDA, IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP!” Eda bellowed. Finally, the girl began to stir. For good measure, Eda hooked her staff around the edge of the sleeping bag and pulled it down, eliciting a displeased groan. “Up and at ‘em, kiddo.” 

Eda’s concentration, along with a nearly completed spell circle moments from dumping King’s entire battalion of stuffed animals on her hapless apprentice, was shattered by Luz’s muffled reply.

“Five more minutes, mom…” 

_I must have misheard_ , Eda thought. _There’s no way she just called me..._

Yet one look at the gleeful grin spreading across King’s face told Eda all she needed to know, and his next words only confirmed it. 

“Did she just-” 

“Not a word, Wiggles,” Eda growled. 

"She called you-"

"What did I just say?"

“Sorry, sorry… Eda the Owl Mom!” With that, King scrambled out of the room, not wanting to stick around to be the target of her ire. 

“Why you little-” Instead of giving chase, though, Eda simply gestured with Owlbert and the door closed itself behind King. It was too early to deal with his nonsense. Honestly, Eda considered herself about as far away from being a mother as one could get. The warm glow in her chest she felt hearing those four words was probably heartburn. 

“Are you gonna make her a nest, _Owl Mom?"_ King taunted gleefully through the closed door. 

“One more word and I’ll use you as stuffing!” Eda threatened, shaking her staff for good measure despite the door between them. _Humans don’t even use nests. I think. Would Luz want—nevermind._ For some reason, the room felt a bit warmer than it had before. That said, it seemed her exchange with King had finally done the trick—Luz was awake! By a generous definition of the word. She was, at the very least, somewhat vertical, head propped up by her hand, and looking up at Eda with a sleepy smile. 

“Mornin’, Eda,” she hummed, and any plans Eda had had of reprimanding her apprentice for sleeping in withered on the vine. Only a monster could scold that face. “What were you and King yelling about?” 

“Nothing! Nothing. Just King being King. You know that little rascal. More importantly, what the heck happened in here? Place looks like the teacher’s lounge at Hexside. After I was done with it, anyway. Ah, memories…”

“That’s my Eda! You know, some of my teachers still get a haunted look in their eye when I mention your name!” 

“Kid, you say the nicest things.” Luz beamed at her. “I still want an explanation, though.” At this, Luz’s ‘It’s morning and I’m happy to see you!’ smile morphed into the excited gleam in her eye that Eda knew by now preceded an impassioned rant. In an instant she was out of bed, almost tripping over her words (and her sleeping bag) in an effort to explain. 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot! I was so excited to show you! Okay so last night I was just practicing my spell glyphs, never know when you’ll need to draw one at short notice, right?” Eda nodded, but her apprentice wasn’t paying attention, instead sifting through the less crumpled sheets of paper strewn around her sleeping bag. “Well, I was trying to compare two ice glyphs for accuracy by putting one over the other, and I noticed, I could kind of see the other glyph through the paper! So then I thought… what happens if I _do_ have two glyphs on the same paper? Well, the answer turned out to be ‘nothing,’ but I wasn’t ready to give up! I tried basically every combination I could think of, until finally… Aha!” Luz lifted her pillow to find a folded up sheet of paper, which she proudly displayed to Eda. “Watch!” She unfolded the sheet of paper and placed it face-up on the floor before looking back at Eda. The glyph looked like an absolute mess; Eda could recognize some aspects of the light rune that had been the girl's first spell, but it was intersected and overlaid by lines from another rune she was less familiar with. Still, she figured Luz wouldn't set up a demonstration if she hadn't worked something out.

“I’m watchin’, kiddo,” she said, both proud of her apprentice’s enthusiasm and genuinely curious at what she’d managed to cook up. How a human from another dimension had more magical intuition than half the witches Eda had ever tangled with, she’d never know. 

Luz tapped a finger on the glyph and scooted back. It glowed, and a neat pillar of ice rose from the ground, about a foot in height. 

A pillar of ice that _shone_. Bright, white light was spilling out of it, illuminating the darkened corners of the room. Luz looked back up at her expectantly, eyes shining with excitement.

“Holy…” Eda could hardly believe what she was seeing. With zero instruction, just trial and error, Luz had managed to combine spells. Not just two spells working in unison, but a single, melded effect. “Kid, those two spells have nothing in common, this is unbelievable!” 

“Really?” If she’d been excited before, Luz now looked like she was about to explode. The stars in her eyes were starting to resemble galaxies.

“Seriously. This is… no, _you’re_ amazing. I’m pretty sure you just invented a new spell. I’ve got the best apprentice in the Boiling Isles! Wait ‘til—oof!” 

Eda was cut off by the high speed impact of one Luz Noceda, and found herself wrapped in a tight hug. After being forced to lean on Owlbert momentarily to keep her balance, Eda allowed herself to wrap an arm around her apprentice’s shoulders and give a light squeeze. One of these days, the kid was gonna figure out that she knew what the ‘parallel arm thing’ was. 

Before Eda’s pride (the voice of which had been growing quieter and quieter lately) could demand she push the girl off, though, she heard a sniff. 

“Luz?” she said, alarmed. “What happened? Was it something I said?” She felt the girl shake her head, still pressed against Eda’s stomach. When Luz spoke, her voice was thick with emotion, but there was an undeniable lightness to it.

“I’m just… really happy…” Eda let out a sigh of relief as the tension drained from her shoulders. When Luz finally drew back, her cheeks were red and there were still tears in the corners of her eyes, but the look of absolute joy on her face left no question as to how she was feeling. “That’s-” she stopped, sniffed, then resumed. “That’s kind of been my dream since I was a kid. To be a witch, to make spells, to have a… um, yeah.” 

_Oh_. Suddenly Eda felt like she hadn’t said enough. Titan, why was she so bad at this mushy stuff? Being open was… hard. Eda was more than rusty. But if anyone deserved it, it was Luz. 

“Well… you should be happy, kid. You did great. I’m proud of you.” Eda only had time to note the fresh tears welling up in her apprentice’s eyes before she was caught by a second hug. Absently running a hand through Luz’s hair, mindful of her claws, she continued. “You know, I was coming in to see if you’d be awake in time for-” 

“OH MY GOSH POTION DELIVERIES!” Luz was suddenly a whirlwind of motion around the room, frantically looking for her bag as she talked. “Eda I’m so sorry, I totally forgot, I would never have stayed up that late if I’d-” 

“But _as I was saying_ ,” Eda cut in with an amused look, causing Luz to pause her mad dash, “I think you’ve earned a day off. I’ll make sure the potions are taken care of, you just relax, okay? You might be bouncing off the walls now, but I know you can’t have gotten that much sleep.” 

“Thanks mom, you’re the best!” 

The silence that followed was so absolute, you could’ve heard a pin drop. Luz stared at Eda. Eda stared at Luz. Any thoughts Eda might have had about teasing her young apprentice for her widened eyes and quickly reddening face were buried by a dull roar of _thanks mom, you’re the best_ playing over and over in her mind. Eda should say something, right? Crack a joke to break the tension, or just wave it off as a simple accident. 

But there was another part of her. A selfish, hopeful, _idiotic_ part of her that should have been ground to dust years ago, that wanted to keep those words, more precious than any trinket or treasure, for herself. Wanted to bury them deep in her chest, nestled up close to her heart. It was the same part of her that screamed _you could be there for her like no one was for you_ when Luz talked about her life back in the human realm, of having classmates but no friends, of a mother who loved her but never seemed to get her. 

Eda was saved from having to make a decision by way of being unceremoniously pushed out the door, which then slammed shut behind her. 

“SORRY EDA I’VE GOTTA CHANGE OUT OF MY PAJAMAS TALK TO YOU LATER!” 

Eda was left blinking in the hallway. She huffed out a laugh at the muffled thump and subsequent ‘I’m fine!’ from the room behind her. Drifting up from downstairs, she could hear King attempting to argue with Hooty over whose fault a certain broken teacup was. Despite having just been given the day off, Luz was still going around and cleaning her room, from the sound of it. No doubt she’d be begging Eda for another magic lesson come this afternoon—or maybe even showing off a new hybrid glyph, since that was apparently a possibility now. It seemed like everywhere Luz went, she toppled barriers she hadn’t even known existed, pushing forward with an undeniable passion and energy that made anything seem possible. She could make friends in an instant in a world nothing like her own, change the restrictive track system in Hexside that had been ironclad for decades, learn magic in a way no human had ever dreamed of… 

She could make Eda feel like a real person again. Like she wasn’t just surviving, but _living_ , like there was a reason she’d fought the curse off all these years beyond spiting Lilith. 

As she slowly walked down the hall to the staircase, drinking in the atmosphere of a cozy, lively Owl House, Eda allowed herself one more selfish thought. 

_That’s my kid_.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> went into this show expecting to become obsessed with Lumity (and to be fair i did, definitely gonna write them at some point) but i finished Young Blood Old Souls absolutely consumed with Eda+Luz found family feelings. broke my 4 year dry streak for fanfic just to get this out. might become more chapters if im feeling extra inspired?? who knows
> 
> EDIT: changed to multi chapter after like four people asked! y'all are amazing. i don't really have a planned endpoint, but i've got ideas for at least another couple scenes. next up, Luz perspective?
> 
> also, thanks for reading! a kudos or comment would mean the world to me ^_^


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprisingly, in Luz’s estimation at least, the world had not ended following what she privately regarded as ‘The Mom Incident.’ Eda hadn’t laughed at her, or told her she didn’t want to deal with a clingy human and sent her home, or enacted any of the other increasingly catastrophic (and in retrospect, unlikely) scenarios she had imagined in the minutes of frantic cleaning that followed Eda’s departure.
> 
> Then Monday came around and everything went to hell.

Surprisingly, in Luz’s estimation at least, the world had not ended following what she privately regarded as ‘The Mom Incident.’ Eda hadn’t laughed at her, or told her she didn’t want to deal with a clingy human and sent her home, or enacted any of the other increasingly catastrophic (and in retrospect, unlikely) scenarios she had imagined in the minutes of frantic cleaning that followed Eda’s departure. All the crumpled paper and failed glyphs were gathered into a mostly-empty trashcan, an act less about organization and more about distracting herself until she could think about anything other than her own stupid, chipper voice blurting out the most embarrassing sentence of her lifetime. _Thanks mom, you’re the best!_ God, and she had thought it was bad when she once called her math teacher mom in fifth grade. When it was someone she lived with? Who she actually… you know, wanted to like her? A thousand times worse. 

Yet somehow, the only thing that awaited her when she finally worked up the courage to slink downstairs was Eda and King in the middle of a friendly argument. She emerged from the stairwell just in time for a cushion to whip across the room and catch King in the face, sending him sprawling onto the floor. 

Eda greeted her with the usual toothy smile and offered her a choice between leftovers from last night and the last of the muffins she had picked up earlier that week. Luz ate her muffin on the couch and watched an ancient VCR episode of Power Rangers on the cracked TV set with King—or more accurately, King watched the show and Luz watched King, far more entertained by his cries for carnage than a show that came out before she was even born. 

Eda bustled around the kitchen, preparing her separate parcels of potions and elixirs until she got bored and joined them on the couch. That afternoon, she delivered the potions herself, as promised, and Luz sitting down to do homework turned into an unintentional two hour nap, also as promised. Damage to her sleep schedule aside, it was a normal day, followed by another, and while Luz hadn’t exactly _forgotten_ The Mom Incident, she was more than happy to never bring it up again. 

Then Monday came around and everything went to hell. 

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Boiling Isles—a land of witchcraft, demons, and magic—was that for the first time in her life, Luz actually _liked_ school. It certainly wasn’t easy—being the school’s first and only all-track student meant her schedule was an absolute mess, and liable to change day by day. Hopping around from class to class kept her from getting to know many of her classmates too well (Gus, Willow, and more recently Amity being the obvious exceptions) and being the school’s only human made her a bit of an outsider, too, although people had warmed up to her a bit after Grom—turns out defeating a fear demon earned you a few popularity points! Add to that the fact that she lacked any background in magic that her classmates were assumed to have, in addition to the teacher’s demonstrations not being exactly applicable to Luz’s way of doing magic… there was no doubt, she was working from behind, in a world that wasn’t exactly made for her. 

School back home had felt like that, too. But here… here, Luz had a reason to try. She wasn’t going to school to avoid disappointing her mom with another mediocre report card, she was going to school to learn _magic_ _,_ a school Eda had fought tooth and nail to get her admitted to. The workload from taking every course was heavy, but she _earned_ that responsibility—not just for herself, but for the other kids like her! 

And her friends. Her _friends_. Gus and Willow were amazing. Having people in her corner who didn’t think she was too weird, who wanted to hang out with her just as much as she did with them, and most importantly of all, who forgave her when she went too far… it was everything she’d wanted back home.

And then there was Amity. 

Honestly, Luz still felt like she was walking on air whenever Amity greeted her in the hallway, or when they shared an Abominations class together and the studious witchling helped catch her up on magical theory. She always sounded so happy to see Luz—there was a lightness to her voice that Luz could never have imagined coming from the cold girl she found berating Willow that one fateful morning. It was like Luz got to see a side of Amity that was secret from the rest of the world, not just the confident, powerful prodigy she absolutely was, but the dorky, enthusiastic, surprisingly kind girl who helped her with homework and had the most brilliant Azura fan-theories Luz had ever heard. 

After their rocky start, the disaster at Covention, and Luz royally screwing up at the library, the fact that Amity and her had ended up dancing at Grom together to defeat a magical fear demon was so… so… _Romantic,_ her brain unhelpfully supplied, causing Luz to blush and bonk her head against the nearest surface. 

Which, as it turned out, was Eda’s back. 

“You alright back there?” Eda asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the wind. Hexside was a spot on the horizon, but by now Luz knew that meant only a couple minutes by staff. “We can still turn around if you wanna earn your official Bad Girl’s Coven hooky badge.” 

“Sorry, Eda,” Luz said with a grin. They had this conversation nearly every day—she was starting to suspect Eda only asked to keep up her reputation of being too cool for Hexside. “You got stuck with an apprentice who actually likes school.” 

“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Now hold on to your bag!” Luz held onto her bag with one arm and Eda with the other as they shot forward, Owlbert cooing happily as he stretched his wings to their full capacity. When they touched down in the pavilion not a minute later, Luz hopped off, turned around, and frowned at the poorly suppressed mirth on her mentor’s face. 

“I swear, you only go that fast so you can laugh at how my hair looks afterwards.” 

Eda snorted. 

“You just figuring that out? C’mere, I’ll fix it for you.” Luz walked over and allowed Eda, still floating side-saddle on her staff, to spend a few moments fussing with her hair. Her nails (Eda called them claws, but Luz was pretty sure that was just weird witch terminology) felt nice against her scalp, even if her hair didn’t really look any better at the end. 

“Luz!” 

Hearing her name called from across the pavilion, Luz turned away from Eda to scan the open courtyard. There, between a pair of kids playing Hexes’ Hold Em on a grimacing stone table and a gaggle of students laughing loudly among themselves—someone was waving at her! 

“VINEY!” 

While Willow, Gus, and Amity were something Luz had long dreamed of, her friendship with “the Troublemakers,” as they still jokingly called themselves, was beyond even her imagination. She had fully expected that after their stunt on her first day of school, she and the multi-track kids would go their separate ways. 

“Are you joking?” was Jerbo’s response when she had said as much. “You like, revolutionized our school. We can learn what we want now, when we want, not just when our jailer passes out and we sneak away. You’re one of us now!” 

And just like that, she was. It wasn’t as if Luz hung out with them all the time—they were mostly in different classes, and as she found out later, they were all upperclassmen—but they all had lunch together in the shortcut room at least once a week, and none of them made any secret of the fact that they were friends with Luz. She had caught some jealous glares from classmates after the time Viney slung an arm around her shoulders in the hallway and laughed uproariously at a joke she had told while they walked to the Beastkeeping grounds. Despite being formerly detention track, Viney was smart, confident, and pretty—even if she wasn’t a social butterfly, she was _cool._ The fact that the three upperclassmen wanted to hang out with her, not out of some shared misery, or sense of obligation, but because they _liked her company_ , still caught Luz by surprise sometimes. 

Yet here Viney was, walking over from across the pavilion with a big grin on her face. 

“What’s up, girl?” she said, once within speaking distance. “You gonna have lunch with us today?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Luz responded. Behind her, Eda scoffed dismissively. 

“Ugh, a _teen_. This your friend, Luz?” Luz rolled her eyes at Viney, who looked more than a little bewildered. _Ignore her,_ she mouthed to her friend, before responding.

“You know I’m a teen too, right Eda?” 

“Exactly! I’ve got a one teen limit, and that’s you,” Eda said. “Although…” When Luz turned around, Eda was giving Viney an appraising look, golden eyes flitting to her fish hook earring, then her hair. “You wear dangerous things on your body for no apparent reason. I like your style.” 

“Thanks?” Viney replied. Luz double-checked her bag to make sure nothing was missing, then began to walk towards the school, Viney beside her. 

“Thanks for the ride, Eda!” she called out over her shoulder. Some kids might have found being dropped off right at school embarrassing, but not Luz. She would take a magical flying staff over a school bus any day. 

Besides, the fact that Eda was willing to do that for her was kind of sweet. 

“No problem. Wait-” at this, Luz turned around, continuing to walk backwards as she looked towards her mentor. “I may or may not be able to pick you up today. I’ll let you know by lunch, okay?” Eda continued. 

“Okay!” Luz nearly stumbled as Viney grabbed her arm and tugged her out of the way of an incoming demonics student, who grumbled at the near miss. Maybe walking backwards wasn’t the smartest plan. “Wait, how are you going to let me know?” 

Eda just winked as Owlbert flapped his wings and began their ascent. “See you tonight!” 

“Well, that’s not ominous at all!”

They had almost reached the steps, Luz avoiding any more near collisions by walking normally, when Viney turned to her with a frown. 

“Wait, is she gonna be able to get you a note if we’re having lunch in the shortcut room?” she asked dubiously. Luz stopped. In all the excitement on her first day, she hadn’t remembered to tell them… Viney walked another step before realizing Luz was no longer beside her. “Luz?” 

Luz, practically bouncing with excitement, bounded up and put her hands on Viney’s shoulders. 

“ _Viney._ Viney, Viney, Viney. Hold on to your adorable and sharp accessories, because I’m about to blow your mind.” Her friend looked back at her, bemused, but made no effort to extricate herself. 

“Alright, mind ready, I guess.” She smirked. After an appropriate pause for dramatic effect, Luz spoke. 

“You just got complimented by _Lord Calamity._ ” 

After a few minutes of the most excited ranting she had ever seen from the girl, Viney had all but begged Luz to let her be the one to tell Jerbo and Barcus. 

“They’re going to _lose it._ Like, I know it’s probably different for you, but that’s our hero!” 

_Not that different,_ Luz thought with a smile. “You totally have to tell me what it’s like to-” Viney was cut off by the bell’s final warning scream. “Crap! I’ve gotta get to class. See you at lunch!” 

After her own farewell, Luz began to walk to her locker, humming happily. Seeing other people appreciate Eda as much as she did was something she’d never get tired of. _Well, maybe not quite as much as I do. They might know her as Lord Calamity, prankster hero, but to me, she’s my…_ mentor? Guardian? Friend? All were accurate, but somehow none seemed sufficient. Oh well. Lunch today was going to be great! 

Classes passed by in a blur—the one standout being a breakthrough in Illusions class, when a rune she had observed after one of Ed and Em’s more flashy “class demonstrations” turned her hand translucent for five minutes after tapping it. Before she knew it, she was filing into the cafeteria alongside Willow. Gus, already holding down their usual table with five illusory copies of himself, waved them over. 

“Ladies! So good of you to join me,” Gus said with a theatrical smile. The copies bowed, then poofed into blue smoke. Willow took the seat next to him and began unpacking her lunch, while Luz held on to her bag. 

“Only for a bit,” she said apologetically. 

“Shock! Betrayal! Nah, I’m just kidding,” Gus said. “Having lunch with your cool upperclassmen friends?” Luz nodded excitedly. 

“They’re about to find out that their prankster idol is Eda! It’s gonna be great.” 

As if on cue, a small circle in the center of their table formed, and from it rose… a tiny abomination hand, finger pointing straight up. Luz, Willow and Gus craned their heads upwards in unison to see an open door in the ceiling of the cafeteria. Seconds later, a vine fell down from the open door, stopping just above their table. 

“That’s me! Gus, would you mind?” 

Gus gave what he probably thought was a wistful sigh. “An illusionist’s work is never over, it seems.” 

“Well, when you’re this good…” Luz said, playing along. Her and Gus both knew he loved showing off his illusion magic at pretty much any chance he got. A quick circle and an odd tingle of magic later, and Luz was almost completely invisible. “Thanks!” 

“This one _will_ wear off after 30 seconds, right?” Willow said as Luz gave a quick tug on the vine. Seconds later, she was being pulled upwards with surprising force. 

“That was one time! One!” 

As the door slammed shut beneath her feet, Luz was greeted by the familiar sight of the shortcut room. Dizzying spirals of mismatched doors and hatches going up and up, murmurs of conversation from all around the school, but most interestingly, her friends! Jerbo spun a lazy circle with his finger and the vine popped out of existence, just as Luz became visible once more, and she was greeted by an excited cry of “Luz!” and one friendly bark. 

Viney and Barcus were already sitting down with their lunches spread out in front of them. 

“Viney said she had some amazing secret to share with us, but she wouldn’t spill until you got here,” Jerbo said as they walked towards the other two. Immediately remembering her excitement from that morning, Luz bounded over to where her friends were seated. 

“Yeah! Ooh, you’re gonna love this,” she confirmed, dropping her bag and sitting down on the floor next to Viney. Barcus gave an inquisitive woof, and finally, Jerbo sat down next to him, the four of them forming a rough circle. 

“Okay…” Viney said slowly, looking between the three of them. She let the tension build for a moment before asking, “Are you guys ready?” 

Luz was _so_ ready. Finally, more people would know how amazing Eda was! They would see she’s not just a wanted criminal, but… well, a wanted prankster. But still! She nudged Viney impatiently, prompting the girl to finally speak.

“This morning… I met Lord Calamity.” Jerbo and Barcus’s jaws dropped, but Viney held up a finger. “ _And,_ ” she continued, “she’s _Luz’s mom_.” 

Jerbo’s cry of disbelief and Barcus’s excited woofing made great cover for Luz’s _complete mental breakdown._ Viney had thought Eda was her mom? She thought Luz was the daughter of… of a powerful, confident, cool witch, someone unapologetically weird, who encouraged her and supported her and… 

Luz felt a tendril of warmth blooming in her chest, curling its way around her heart like the vines Willow coaxed from the earth. Then she realized the others were still talking, and shook herself from her reverie. 

“...and then she said she LIKED MY STYLE!” Viney finished with a dramatic flourish of her hands. Finally, Luz’s brain finished rebooting itself and she regained the power of speech. 

“Wha—Viney, that’s—I mean—I never said she was my-” Luz, blushing, _(oh god why was she blushing)_ found herself mercifully cut off by another interjection from Viney. 

“Okay, but come on, it was obvious. I mean, guys, you should’ve seen her. She dropped Luz off right in the pavilion, fussed with her hair, then made plans for picking you up after school. Anyone could see that she adores you.” 

_She adores you._ Luz could tell there was a goofy grin spreading across her face as the words washed over her, but she didn’t care. The warmth from earlier was bubbling up inside of her; Luz felt like she had after her mom had given her a glass of champagne last New Year’s Eve. _She adores you._

“R-right! I mean, yeah! Sorry, I was just, um, surprised?” She felt a damp nose bump against her elbow, and looked over to see Barcus, tail wagging impatiently, who let out a quick ruff at her. 

“Yeah, come on!” Jerbo agreed. “You’ve got to tell us what it’s like to live with the most legendary prankster Hexside has ever known.” 

“Well…” Luz looked around at her friends, who were all staring at her in rapt attention. “Did I ever tell you about the time I helped her break out of jail?” 

The rest of the lunch period passed by in a blur of laughter and conversation. Luz delighted them with tales of Eda’s mischief, of which she had no shortage. At some point, a trapdoor had opened and Owlbert flew in, delivering a messily folded up note to her and accepting a few scratches under the chin before flying off. The note simply said “SRY, BUSY THIS AFTERNOON. WITCH STUFF,” in scrawled handwriting. It wasn’t signed, but there was a slightly sticky pawprint in what Luz hoped was red paint that could only have come from King. This of course led to another minor freakout as the Troublemakers had realized they were looking at none other than Lord Calamity’s palisman. 

None of the four had finished their lunches by the time they heard the bell scream, but Luz couldn’t bring herself to mind. She gave Viney a quick hug, Jerbo a fist bump, and Barcus a pat on the head before packing up her remaining food. Viney selected a door that would drop Luz off in her next class, and opened it with a flourish. “Bye, Luz! Tell your mom we’re her biggest fans!” 

Luz nearly stumbled going through the door as the words registered. 

“Will do!” she squeaked. The door clicked shut behind her, and Luz realized she had just exited from a locker, not twenty feet from her Herbology class. She sighed happily to herself and began the walk over, a noticeable spring in her step. _They thought I was Eda’s daughter… Me! The daughter of a witch!_ Luz hugged her bag close to her chest as she recalled Viney’s words. _Anyone could see she that adores you…_ was that really true? Did Eda act like her… 

Her mom. 

It was like a bucket of ice water had been poured over Luz’s head. Her mom. Oh, god. The bubbly excitement she had felt just moments ago curdled into shame, and Luz had a sudden, acute desire to be swallowed into the ground as she realized that she had spent the past half hour pretending to be someone else’s daughter. How would her mom feel if she knew what she had just been thinking? 

The thought of her loving, hardworking mom asking her in a tremulous voice, “Am I not good enough for you, _mija_?” was almost enough to make Luz drop her bag. She felt sick. Could you get nauseous from being a terrible daughter? It sure felt like it. She was so _ungrateful_. Her mom did everything for her, and how does Luz repay her? 

By running away, lying to her, and apparently, pretending to be someone else’s daughter. Maybe she would get lucky and a trash slug would pick her off on the walk home. _Maybe it’s a good thing Eda can’t pick me up today,_ Luz thought weakly to herself. The twinge of disappointment she felt in response only made the guilt worse. She _knew_ her mom worried over being a single parent—she tried to hide it, but Luz wasn’t stupid. She knew her mom felt guilty for all the late nights at the hospital she took, knew she hated the thought of her daughter coming home to an empty apartment. Luz had always done her best to smooth over those worries, reminding her mom every chance she got that she loved her, that she had never felt like she was missing anything from their family of two.

And now here she was, betraying her mom in the worst way possible. It was too much. She had to think of something else, anything else, or the guilt would swallow her whole.

_Golden eyes opening wide in shock, a toothy grin relaxing into something softer, more genuine, but no less excited. “This is… no,_ you’re _amazing.”_

Luz squeezed her eyes shut. _No_. Why was this happening? She loved her mom more than anyone else on Earth, and she knew her mom adored her just as much. She shouldn’t want… 

_A scratchy voice made rougher by sleep, asking with genuine wonder, “Kid, what did I do to deserve you?”_

_Stop it. This isn’t fair._

Finally, no amount of dragging her feet could keep Luz from reaching the classroom. She didn’t want to be here. Luz wanted to be home, and the fact that she wasn’t sure if she meant her cozy apartment on Magnolia Drive or the Owl House just felt like another dagger in her mother’s back. 

The latter half of the day seemed to drag on for eternity, yet Luz couldn't have recalled a single thing that happened after lunch. She was a ghost in class, usual energy subdued under a haze of guilt. Her friends could obviously tell something was wrong, but the thought of actually verbalizing her betrayal made her throat close up with shame. Finally, the school day was over. She gave subdued goodbyes to Gus and Willow, spared a halfhearted smile for Amity, and slipped out before anyone else could try to talk to her. Being alone with her thoughts was the last thing Luz wanted right now... but maybe it was what she deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, thanks for all the amazing comments! i really was not expecting such a big response, and all the appreciation definitely motivated me to work more on this. i'm pretty certain on this fic being a three-parter now, so unless i'm waylaid by more fun ideas, the next chapter should be the last.
> 
> oh, and since she's properly being mentioned in the fic now, i figure i should say right away that this is NOT going to be a Camilla hate fic. i don't think Luz needs to be rescued from her and taken away to live with Good Mom Eda or anything like that. the flashes of Eda praising her at the end aren't meant to imply that Camilla withholds affection from her, but receiving praise specifically for her "weirdness" is new to Luz. parental relationships are complicated! a good parent can make a well-intentioned decision from a place of love and still hurt you. but more on that next time...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luz comes home, Eda gets scared. Things get messy.

Eda had known something was wrong as soon as the door clicked shut. The sky was just beginning to turn an exquisite shade of violet, so she had been expecting Luz’s arrival for a little bit. Her inventory at the stall having sold out quicker than anticipated (Luz being able to make half the stuff she hauled in from the human world light up or produce sound did wonders for marketability), Eda had figured she could do something nice for her apprentice with the extra time it would take her to walk home from Hexside. After a few minutes of contemplation, she had recalled Luz mentioning fond memories of drinking hot apple cider during Christmas. She had no idea what ‘Christmas’ was supposed to be, but apple cider couldn’t be that different than apple blood, right? 

When Hooty had extended from the house with his typical enthusiastic hooting, Eda had snuffed the flame spell beneath her cauldron and summoned up a few mugs from the chaotic mess that was her kitchen cupboards, expecting to hear her apprentice bursting in at any moment. 

The lack of a reply to Hooty’s squawked greetings was slightly unusual, but not worrisome outright. The house demon was pretty obnoxious, after all; Eda certainly wasn’t in the mood to deal with him all the time. She contemplated the cauldron she was stirring. It smelled good to her, but then again, she wasn’t _exactly_ sure how apple “cider” was supposed to smell. 

When the door swung open without so much as a word of greeting or declaration of her apprentice’s arrival, Eda was officially worried. Luz’s exuberant “I’m home!” was practically a daily ritual at this point, usually preceding an almost too fast to follow recap of the most exciting events the school day had to offer. Eda started to turn from her cauldron, intending to make her way to the door and see what was the matter, when the door quietly clicked shut, and Eda’s worry quickly became alarm. 

Luz was not, and had never been, the type to slip quietly into a room. She was loud, cheerful, full of life—she made _entrances_ where most people would just show up. Even upset, she filled the house with her presence, doors shutting just a touch too forcefully, heavy footsteps and the particular genre of loud, dramatic sighs that only a teenager could manage.

Eda heard none of that, and it terrified her. 

“Luz?” she called out, unable to keep the worry from creeping into her tone. “That you?” She called Owlbert to her hand as she made her way to the living room, just in case of… well, just in case. Yet all she saw upon reaching the cluttered foyer was her apprentice, backpack slung over her shoulder… and already halfway to the stairs?

“Oh… Hey Eda,” said Luz, and Eda stopped dead in the middle of her living room. 

Luz sounded _lifeless_. Totally flat. She would say it didn’t sound like her at all, but it was unmistakably the same voice, just empty of its usual vigor and excitement for life. Eda almost wished it was a magical doppelgänger situation, at least she knew how to deal with that. But as her apprentice turned to face her, Eda found herself completely at a loss. 

Luz looked about as bad as she sounded. She carried herself with a clear weight of exhaustion, another aspect of this situation so blatantly wrong it set Eda instantly on edge. Her eyes were slightly red, not as if she had been crying, but maybe as though she’d been trying not to. Whatever had happened to her, it wasn’t the usual weirdness or peril of the Boiling Isles—Luz has proven time and time again that she could bounce back from that in minutes. 

The thought that something truly bad could have happened to Luz while she was selling human garbage was instantly chilling, but she didn’t seem to have been harmed… maybe she was just feeling down? 

“The walk home wasn’t that bad, was it?” Eda joked, trying for her usual nonchalance and only partially succeeding as worry began to creep into her voice. 

“The walk was fine,” Luz responded in that same lifeless tone. She refused to meet Eda’s eyes, instead casting her gaze down to the floor, crossed arms holding one another.

Eda had _no idea how to deal with this_. It wasn’t like Luz had never been sad or upset before, but she usually wanted to talk about it, spilling her guts at the first opening Eda gave her. A closed-off Luz was not something she had any experience in. 

Wait. Eda had a gift! Everyone loved gifts; this had to cheer her up. 

“So, uh, I actually finished up business at the stand earlier than expected,” Eda began. Luz didn’t respond, but she did finally look up at her, her curiosity piqued. “Anyways, I thought I could use the extra time to, you know… do something nice for you?” 

Luz stared at her, utterly expressionless. Not exactly the encouragement Eda was hoping for, but she plowed on regardless.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but I remembered you talking about how much you loved getting hot apple cider during “Christmas time.” Still not sure what that is, but apple cider, apple blood, can’t be all that different, right?” 

With a flourish and a quick magic circle, two mugs came sailing in from the kitchen to float in the air next to Eda, followed by the steaming cauldron of apple cider, which set itself down on the cluttered coffee table, pushing some assorted papers, stuffed animal parts, and real animal bones aside. 

“Ta-da! Whaddya think, kiddo? I’m pretty sure I got most of the blood out; I know you’re a little squeamish about that. I even got some of your weird human spices! Though I may have eaten some of the cinnamon myself. Most of the cinnamon.” 

Eda was rambling at that point, and she knew it. Sentimental gestures weren’t exactly something she was well practiced at, but surely this would get at least a smile out of the kid, right? 

Luz stared at Eda. She looked to the mugs floating in the air, then the cauldron, then back to Eda, who only had time to take in her glistening eyes and trembling lower lip before Luz abruptly burst into tears. 

Eda froze. She heard the mugs crashing to the floor behind her, but the sound of shattering ceramic was a distant concern next to the wrenching sobs coming from her apprentice. Luz clutched at her own arms desperately, gripping tight enough to turn her knuckles white, and that finally galvanized Eda to action. 

“Luz? Luz!” She was by her side in a second, reaching out to—to what, Eda didn’t know, but as soon as her hand made contact Luz crumpled against her, falling to her knees and nearly taking Eda to the floor with her. 

“Luz, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Eda asked frantically. Luz shook her head before another sob wracked her body, and she curled into herself further. 

This was bad. This was really, really bad, in a way that was far beyond Eda’s ability to fix. Still, she could at least do something—she could get Luz off the floor. 

Eda crouched down, ignoring the ominous creak her legs gave in response, and slipped an arm under the crooks of Luz’s knees. Supporting her back with her other hand, and with no small amount of effort, Eda rose to a standing position, holding the crying girl against her chest. Luz’s only reaction to being picked up was to wrap her arms around Eda, who awkwardly maneuvered them to the couch before half-sitting, half-falling back onto it, letting out a small grunt as Luz’s hip dug into her side. 

It wasn’t until she was faced with an armful of sobbing teenager that Eda truly realized how much she had changed since Luz had come into her life. If she’d been asked half a year ago how to deal with such a situation, her answer would have ranged from “leave” to “turn the brat into a newt,” depending on how sassy she was feeling that day. Children and mushy emotions were two things Eda the Owl Lady had no time for. 

Now, feeling Luz’s shoulders shake with each heaving sob, her arms wrapped around Eda’s chest, squeezing tight enough she wouldn’t be surprised to feel a rib crack, Eda could only feel a blazing desire to protect. Her dress around her gem was crumpled and damp from tears, and the cider had gone cold, but none of that mattered. Hearing Luz cry made Eda’s chest ache worse than any magical burnout, and she wanted—no, _needed,_ to find out what was wrong, and fix it by any means necessary. 

Now if only she could get Luz to talk to her. 

Freeing an arm previously pinned against the sofa, but careful to keep a hold on Luz with the other, Eda started to rub what she hoped were soothing circles against her apprentice’s back. Titan, she was so bad at this, but there wasn’t anyone else around to do the job—and even if there had been, something inside her twisted at the idea of letting Luz out of her sight at the moment. Awkward or not, Eda wanted it to be her. 

“Luz, sweetie,” she began. Well. She hadn’t planned on _that_ slipping out, but no going back now. Luz burrowed her face even further into Eda’s shoulder with a loud sniff, but gave no further response. “Did something happen at school?” she tried. Luz tensed up against her, and Eda felt a brief surge of panic. _She doesn’t want to talk, you’re prying too hard._ But after a moment, the girl gave a massive shrug that Eda felt rather than saw, then slumped against her once more. 

Okay. That was progress. 

“Did a student mess with you?” Her hand had found its way to Luz’s hair somehow, and she began stroking it softly. “‘Cause I won’t hesitate to hex a kid if they’re giving my apprentice trouble. Or a teacher. Just say the word.” That earned her the tiniest huff of laughter, which Eda took as encouragement, until a second later Luz just shook her head as best she could while still hiding her face in Eda’s shoulder. Eda felt a sudden chill on her neck as Luz drew in a shaky, shuddering breath. She held it for one second, two, body growing tense in Eda’s arms, before another loud sob forced its way out, and she collapsed against her mentor once more. 

This was why Eda had avoided caring about anyone for so long. It _hurt._ Seeing Luz so shattered felt like someone was carving pieces out of her heart with a particularly dull blade. 

_Deal with it. She needs you._

Guessing at the problem wasn’t going to work, and neither would trying to distract her. If she truly wanted to help, it couldn’t be from a safe distance. Eda took a deep breath and summoned her nerve. 

She did say she would do anything for this kid, didn’t she? 

“Luz…” 

Eda barely recognized her own voice as she spoke. It was a tender and aching thing; stripped bare of the harshness and distance that kept her safe, all that was left was a love so strong she was afraid it would burn her. It was the voice of a girl she had long considered dead and buried, an Eda who had worn her heart on her sleeve and been burned for it too many times to count. 

It terrified her, and she was pretty sure Luz could tell, as if that one word had turned all of Eda’s carefully maintained walls to glass. She was vulnerable, and a significant portion of her mind was screaming at her to stop, to crack a joke, push the kid away, anything to be _safe_ again. 

Instead, Eda summoned up the ghost of her better self and continued. 

“Luz, darling…” 

Finally, after what could have been an eternity, Luz moved. Still half sitting on Eda’s lap after their crash landing on the couch, with trembling arms Luz braced herself against the back of the couch and pushed herself into a more upright sitting position, finally meeting Eda’s eyes for the first time since coming home, and _oh._

_Oh, Luz._

Her apprentice’s cheeks were blotchy red, eyes puffed up from crying, and there was snot running from her nose, but none of that compared to the expression on her face. There was pain, and guilt, but more than that, Luz just looked _lost._ Like whatever was causing this hurt had her so turned around she couldn’t tell which way was up. The sudden desire to _fix this_ was so overwhelming that Eda could barely breathe, but she forced herself to continue regardless. 

“Can you…” Eda’s voice cracked, but the vulnerability that seemed so pressing seconds ago had become a distant concern. “Can you please tell me what’s wrong, Luz? I can’t help unless you tell me…” 

For a second, Luz just stared at her in shock. Tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to spill over, before she threw herself onto Eda’s chest again, clinging to her desperately. A harsh, crackling sob forced its way out of her before she finally managed to answer, her wail muffled, but still impossible to mishear. 

“I want my mom... ” 

Those four words hit Eda like a blow to the gut. _She wants her real mom, not some crazy old witch._ It was an immense struggle to not tense up, to keep her hurt from leaking out. Eda managed. Luz needed her support, not some criminal burnout trying to act like her… 

Oh, Titan. 

The realization felt like stepping off a cliff with no magic to save her. 

This whole time. This entire time, Eda had thought she was helping. Had thought she was stepping in to fill a role Luz needed. But she wasn’t, was she? All along, Luz was missing her mother, her _real_ mother, and Eda had been, consciously or not, trying to replace her. 

Panic flooded her veins. Eda had to fix this, no matter how much it hurt. 

“Luz, I’m so sorry.” Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she gently tried to let Luz escape her embrace, who for her part continued to cling just as tightly. Eda looked away, but forced herself to continue. “I never—I wasn’t trying to replace her. I know I’m not—if you want, I can-” _no no no no, don’t say it, don’t-_ “I can open the portal.” 

The words hung in the air between them. Eda wanted to take them back, snatch them up and pretend she had never suggested it, but it was too late. She heard Luz’s sharp intake of breath, felt her arms loosen from their tight hold on Eda, felt the girl begin to draw back, and knew it was over. All Luz had to do was say-

“No!” The raw panic in Luz’s voice dragged Eda’s gaze back to her, and she found herself pierced by the weight of her stare. Brown eyes swimming with tears, some spilling down her apprentice’s cheeks, but that lost look of confusion Eda recognized earlier had been replaced with a desperate resolve, no less powerful for the pain it accompanied. 

“I want my mom, but I…” the words seemed to catch in her throat, and Luz’s face screwed up in frustration before she finally blurted out, “I want you too!” Eda’s eyes grew wide in shock, but Luz wasn’t done. “I want you to tuck me into bed at night! I want you to pick me up from school and embarrass me in front of my friends by hugging me, I want you to crack terrible jokes, and give bad romantic advice, and… t-tell me you’re proud of me…” Her voice cracking and dwindling, Luz’s courage seemed to evaporate like mist in the midday sun. She looked up nervously at Eda, who for her part quickly realized that _now was not the time to sit here gaping like a moron,_ even if she had just experienced the life changing realization that she loves this kid like a daughter and would very much like to do all of those things.

Instead, Eda reached out and pulled Luz into a crushing hug. The girl let out a surprised squeak as she found herself pressed tight against Eda’s chest, but quickly melted into her embrace. Even with legs numb from lack of movement, a dress damp with snot and tears, and a wetness in her eyes that she would die before letting King hear of, Eda was pretty sure she had never been this content in her life. Her fingers found Luz’s hair again, stroking through slight curls. 

“You’ve made me _so_ proud, Luz,” Eda murmured. “Ever since you got here, you’ve been turning this world upside down in the best way possible. I mean, you’ve-” Eda hesitated. Was she really about to admit this? 

_She deserves to know._

“You’ve given me a reason to look forward to the future. I, uh, haven’t had that in a while.” 

Luz shifted in her arms. 

“How did I do that?” she asked hesitantly. “What reason?” 

Yeah, Luz reading between the lines had probably been too much to hope for. Ignoring the burning in her cheeks that could not have been a blush because _Eda Clawthorne does not blush,_ she continued. 

“You’re really gonna make me spell it out for you? It’s _you,_ Luz. You’re the reason. Being your teacher, seeing you make friends at school, watching you grow into the amazing witch I know you’re gonna be…” Eda swallowed thickly at the sudden rush of emotion the thought of Luz growing up brought her, and quickly stored that away to be examined later. “It’s, uh, nice,” she finished lamely. 

Luz promptly burst into tears once more, sending a sharp spike of panic straight down Eda’s spine. 

“Luz? Crap, did I say something wrong? I’m sorry, I’m so bad at this, I-” Luz _giggled,_ then let out another sob, and Eda was officially completely lost. 

“You’re so _good_ to me,” Luz said, letting her head fall against Eda’s chest again with a thunk. “Ever since I’ve got here, you’ve been amazing, and accepting, and you seem _excited_ when I do weird, crazy things, and it’s just too much! I shouldn’t want… I can’t…” Luz let out a frustrated growl, words seeming to fail her for a moment, before continuing. 

“I love my mom, Eda… and I know she loves me too. She does everything for me, we’ve always been there for each other. So why… why do I feel so _sick_ when I think about going home? I miss her so much, but I…” Luz looked up at her, eyes shining with tears, face open and vulnerable and yet so, so trusting (Eda thought she might be the bravest witch she’d ever met) and whispered, “I don’t want to leave you.” 

Finally, _finally_ , Eda felt like she understood. Luz was happy here, maybe happier than she’d ever been on Earth, and that felt like a betrayal of the woman who had raised her. Eda’s heart ached for the guilt her apprentice must have been feeling. But… 

“I can’t say I know everything about her, but it sounds like your mom really wants you to be happy. And you’re happy here, right?” 

Luz nodded emphatically, bunching up Eda’s dress even further around her gem. 

“Really happy…” she mumbled.

“Well,” Eda continued reasonably, “Then don’t you think she would be happy to see how well you’re doing here? You’re doing great in school, you’ve got friends, you’ve got-” _a family,_ she almost blurted out, managing to clamp down on it at the last second. “You’ve got me.” 

Instead of the relief Eda was hoping to see, though, Luz curled into herself further. 

“I don’t know… Eda, before I came here, Mom wanted me to go to this… camp. So I could learn how to be _normal._ ” She spat out that last word like it pained her, and Eda felt a flare of outrage building in her before she pushed it down. Getting pissed at Luz’s mom was probably not the most helpful reaction she could have right now, even if the thought of someone trying to change Luz made her blood boil. “All my… weirdness… it used to make her laugh. Now it just makes her look tired.” She let out a defeated sigh. “I know she wants me to be happy, but what if this is all just… too much for her?” 

Eda’s heart felt too heavy in her chest. She knew all too well what it was like to feel like you were too much, and the thought of Luz—wild, caring, brilliant Luz—feeling like she had to push down what made her _her_ was almost enough to break Eda’s heart. She had to fix this—and for the first time that afternoon, Eda thought she might know how. 

“Luz… sometimes a person can care about you more than anything in the world, and still not _see_ you.” Decades of fights flashed through her mind, hundreds of demands to _just join up with the Emperor’s Coven and everything will be okay again, Edalyn._ “It hurts, and you wonder if you could have done something different, should have _been_ someone different, but… it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.” This was hard. Was she talking about Luz’s mom or Lilith at this point? Eda didn’t know, couldn’t stop to think—talking about this felt like prying her ribcage open and baring her heart for the whole world to stare at; she’d lose her nerve if she paused for even a moment. Holding Luz close (for whose comfort, she couldn’t say), Eda continued. “It doesn’t mean she won’t ever understand you, and it doesn’t mean you should change yourself. Not for your mom, not for me, not for anyone.” 

“You’ve never made me feel like I had to change, Eda.” When she looked down, Luz was gazing up at her, side of her head still pressed against Eda’s chest, a melancholy smile half-visible. “I just wish my mom could see me like… like you do…” Her face fell. “God, I’m a horrible daughter.” 

Eda opened her mouth, intending to gently rebuke the claim, to insist that Luz’s mom wouldn’t want to hear her talk about herself that way.

“I think you’re an amazing daughter.” 

The second it took for Eda’s brain to catch up with what she had just said was the longest she’d ever experienced in her life. She was about to blurt out an apology, an excuse, _anything,_ when Luz cut in. 

“You… you really think that?” The raw hope in her voice nearly took Eda’s breath away, and, well. She hadn’t meant to _say it,_ but… it wasn’t as if she didn’t mean it. 

“Of course I do, kiddo. Your mom is lucky to have you.” _And so am I._

Although Luz looked like she might finally be starting to believe her, a flicker of doubt still showed on her face. 

“But… shouldn’t I be happy with just her? She’s my mom…” she said doubtfully. Eda cast her mind about for anything she could say to drive the point home, anything to get across to this poor kid that it wasn’t a betrayal of her mom to care about someone else.

“You can’t force yourself to be happy for someone else’s sake, kiddo. Even someone you love. And even if you could… Why do you think you should have to?” Luz looked up at her, brow furrowed as if suspecting a trick question. 

“Because… she’s my mom?” 

“Well, some people have two moms, right?” Eda asked. “Do you think they love them any less?” Luz looked affronted.

“Of course not! There’s nothing wrong with having two moms, it’s perfectly-” she fell silent abruptly, and Eda could practically see the gears turning in her head. “Oh.” Eda grinned. 

“See? You aren’t loving your mom any less by caring about me. You’ve got a lot of love in your heart, kiddo, and that’s perfectly fine.” Eda could actually feel the release of tension as Luz slumped against her and let out a relieved sigh. Having someone this close was… nice. Even if Eda had gotten used to Luz’s frequent hugs, she had never initiated one herself before. But here, feeling the rise and fall of Luz’s chest as she took a measured breath in, held it, and exhaled slowly (something Eda had seen her do before when especially stressed—the ride to her first day of Hexside came to mind), she was starting to get the appeal. 

They sat in comfortable silence for a minute, Luz with her arms wrapped loosely around Eda’s waist, breathing steadily in time, Eda idly playing with Luz’s hair, content for once to simply wait. 

It was Luz who ended up breaking the silence first.

“Thanks, Eda… sorry for freaking out on you like that,” she said sheepishly. Eda scoffed.

“Nope! Not accepting apologies for that, kiddo. You were upset, and _that’s okay._ Anyone who looks like they have it together all the time is probably even more of a screaming mess on the inside, trust me.” 

Luz hummed, a tiny noise of contentment that set warmth blooming in Eda’s chest. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I trust you.” 

The relative silence of the Owl House fell over them again—clocks ticking, the occasional creak of boards from upstairs. The peaceful ambience, coupled with Luz’s steady breathing helped to relax Eda further, the wave of buzzing panic that had overtaken her upon seeing Luz burst into tears finally washing back out to sea. With the adrenaline gone, Eda was left with—well, mostly exhaustion, but also a contentment so strong it was almost an ache in her bones. 

That, and a _really_ embarrassing urge to build Luz a nest. Yeah, she may have torn down emotional barriers decades in the making for this girl, but that particular impulse was never seeing the light of day if Eda had anything to say about it. She looked down at Luz, still resting in her arms, and noted her eyes slipping shut. Poor kid must have been worn out after all that crying—but it wouldn’t do to let her fall asleep right now; she’d be awake all night and a wreck in school tomorrow. 

Titan, Eda really was going soft, wasn’t she? Worrying about her kid’s sleep schedule, giving hugs and life advice… in the privacy of her own mind, Eda had to admit she didn’t exactly hate it. Luz came to her more upset than she’d ever seen the kid, and Eda had helped her. Not with a show of magical prowess, or a grand gesture like bargaining for admission to Hexside, but with words and affection. Luz had come to her for comfort, and Eda, just Eda, was _enough._

Maybe going soft wasn’t so bad. 

“Alright, kiddo,” Eda said, causing Luz to look up at her sleepily. “If you spend any more time sitting on my lap, it’s gonna take a reanimation spell to get my legs moving again. And let me tell you, those are _way_ more trouble than they’re worth. Wanna go see if we can scrounge up a snack?” Luz groaned in halfhearted protest. 

“Sleepy…” she mumbled, speaking half into Eda’s shoulder. Eda couldn’t help but stare fondly—the only times Luz looked so at peace were when she was asleep, or on the verge of it. With her eyes closed and a soft smile on her face, far more reserved than her usual excited grin, Eda wasn’t too proud to admit that a sleepy Luz was pretty much the cutest thing in the Boiling Isles. 

_And she trusts you, wants you to take care of her._

“I know, hon, but if you fall asleep now you’ll be up all night. C’mon.” Eda didn’t even realize the term of endearment had slipped out until she saw Luz looking up at her with a mischievous grin. “What?” 

“You called me hon,” Luz said simply, and Eda felt a spike of panic growing before she pushed it down. Her first instinct was to deny ever having said such a thing, but maybe… 

“Is that… okay?” She asked cautiously. Luz looked surprised, like she’d expected Eda to protest more, which was fair. Her mischievous grin shifted into something a bit more shy before she responded. 

“It’s, um. Really nice actually?” Luz was blushing now, and refusing to meet her eyes, which was, oddly enough, a comfort to Eda. 

So maybe Eda didn’t really have a clue how this was supposed to go. Neither did Luz, apparently. It wasn’t every day you more-or-less adopted a human from another world. One heartfelt conversation wouldn’t be enough to soothe Luz’s conflicted feelings over her mom, and that… was okay. There would be more tearful meltdowns, more guilt and confusion. Eda might not always know how to help. 

But they’d be figuring it out together, and that, more than anything, made Eda believe it would all work out fine. 

After a few more minutes of coaxing, Eda had gotten Luz up and into the kitchen, magicking away the shards of the two broken mugs as they went. The cider had ended up needed reheating, and while they waited for that, Luz had explained to Eda that “Christmas time” was a season, not a time of day, and that apple cider was traditionally a winter thing. 

She still drank it, though. 

They ended up ordering takeout for dinner after King had come back from his grocery run (the result of yet another lost wager) with nothing but candy bars and several varieties of raw meat, an outcome Eda honestly should have seen coming a mile away. Life in the Owl House returned to its normal rhythm, Luz happily chattering away to Eda about the potential combinations of glyphs she could work on next as they ate their dinner on the couch. Luz practiced some magic and played with King while Eda did inventory of her potion supplies she’d need for next week’s orders, occasionally looking over fondly at the two. King ended up falling asleep on the couch, with Luz dragging herself upstairs to bed not long after. A perfectly normal night in the Owl House. 

And if Eda had given Luz a kiss on the forehead that night after tucking her into her sleeping bag? That was nobody’s business but her own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole emotional meltdown is what i've been building towards this whole time, basically. i hope it was worth it! i agonized for the longest time over whose perspective this chapter would be written in- both had some really interesting insights into why each character reacts how they do. what do you think about this take on Eda and Luz? this much emotional dialogue (and openness from eda) is pretty far from what we've seen in canon at the moment, so i hope their characterizations stand up.
> 
> so yeah! thank you so much for reading, and if this made you smile or cry or want to punch a wall i'd love to hear about it in a comment.
> 
> P.S. Luz's thoughts on Camilla are biased by her being a scared teenager. what she's interpreting as disappointment is actually Camilla becoming increasingly worried that her daughter will never be able to make friends and be happy. yes this is the hill i will die on


End file.
